So it looks like curtains for Setanta, whose owners are desperately trying to save a company generally believed to be hours away from going into administration. A rescue is still theoretically possible – it might realise that its existing service could be run at a massively reduced cost and with no loss of quality, simply by giving some chimpanzees a video camera and hoping for the best. Though it may have been doing that from the start. Who knows?

Setanta's contribution to sports broadcasting has been brief and far from blissful. It would leave behind lots of irate customers cursing its customer services representatives, who on the rare occasions when they actually exist aren't apparently very nice, a number of Scottish clubs facing imminent budget-slashing, a few Blue Square Premier clubs angrily waving their fists, a handful of piqued hurling fans and a probably not-that-bothered-actually Steve McManaman.

The thing is, while there's absolutely nothing wrong with another broadcaster trying to upset Sky's monopolistic apple-cart, no company that already gives Rupert Murdoch's merry men a monthly stipend really wants to shell out more cash to someone else for the same kind of thing. But even when you've taken a conscious decision not to subscribe, you're still narked when you can't watch the England game.

Setanta was doomed from the start, to unpopularity if not necessarily to failure. It wouldn't have mattered a jot if it was to sports broadcasting what Gordon Ramsay is to being a foul-mouthed git, ie really good. But, for the record, it wasn't.

Perhaps more people would have been tempted by a service with less rights at a lower price – does anyone really need Setanta Ireland, Setanta Golf, Setanta Sports 1, Setanta Sports 2, Setanta Sports News, Liverpool TV, Celtic TV, Rangers TV, Arsenal TV, Entertainment Sports Programming Network America and Racing UK? If they had charged a £5 a month for two channels rather than £12.99 for 11, might more of us have signed up?